Getting started with Windows Presentation Framework

Posted By:Karthikeyan AnbarasanPosted Date:January 29, 2013Points:200
Category: WPFURL:http://www.dotnetspark.comIn this series we are going to see in detail on each of the components and features that are used to develop an application with Windows Presentation Framework as a base.

Introduction:

In this series we are going to see what Windows Presentation Framework (WPF) is and how to use this framework to effectively develop an application. Windows Presentation Framework is a platform that was introduced in .Net Framework 3.0 along with Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) and Windows Work Flow (WWF) which are used to create an application containing high resolution pictures and graphics easily. Windows Presentation Framework is used to generate a presentation layer for developing Windows Client application, basically a stand-alone client with a rich user experience. Also with this framework we can create both Standalone or Browser based hosted application as per our requirement.

Evaluation of Windows Presentation Framework:

Windows Presentation Framework is resolution independent and vector based rendering framework which will take advantage over modern graphics hardware. Windows Presentation framework has a lot of development features which includes XAML Coding (Extensible Application Markup Language), Data Binding, Controls, Layouts, 2D and 3D graphics, Animations, Styles, Templates, Documents, Media, Text and Typography. Windows Presentation frameworks predecessor is Windows Forms as we know but Windows Presentation Framework differs fundamentally which is built on top of the DirectX, a technology that originally focused on Multimedia and gaming.

Windows Presentation Framework is one of the subset component of the .Net Framework that are located in the System.Windows namespace. Apart from traditional dropping controls on Windows Forms pages just each and every developer do for years with Windows Presentation Framework which provides an extra option to develop Rich User Interface with Animation and much more. The much important concept that is introduced with the Windows Presentation Framework application development is the XAML coding, XAML stands for Extensible Application Markup Language where the application loads the XAML code to load the User Interface.
XAML is considered as a Declarative Language, which means it's a programming language as a paradigm that express a logic of computation without describing its flow of controls and so we can say XAML is declarative language.

Prerequisites for WPF:

When it comes to developing application with Window Presentation Framework a fair bit of XAML declarative programming is a must to get idea on the development approaches. To develop the application for Windows Presentation Framework we need to have Visual Studio 2012 IDE or Visual Studio 2010 IDE in place where the necessary development kits and framework will be installed along with the integrated development environment.

Summary:

In this series we are going to see in detail on each of the components and features that are used to develop an application with Windows Presentation Framework as a base.